


no open ends

by Shaicarus



Series: dawn of the final day [2]
Category: Persona 5
Genre: Bittersweet Ending, Getting Together, Kissing, M/M, Not Beta Read, One Shot, Set in the third semester, Spoilers for Royal, can be standalone, death mentioned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-05
Updated: 2020-09-05
Packaged: 2021-03-06 23:07:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26306812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Shaicarus/pseuds/Shaicarus
Summary: Goro opens his mouth to respond, but...pauses. Evidently, he digs up something of his long-neglected tact, because rather than grinding salt into the wound, what he settles on is, “You are distressingly sentimental. Has anyone ever told you that before?”Akira laughs, low and quiet, but nevertheless just verging on hysterical. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” he sighs, lifting a hand to catch Goro’s chin between two fingers.
Relationships: Akechi Goro/Amamiya Ren, Akechi Goro/Kurusu Akira, Akechi Goro/Persona 5 Protagonist
Series: dawn of the final day [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1911370
Comments: 11
Kudos: 119





	no open ends

**Author's Note:**

> So I finished P5R and it ripped my heart out! Also terrified me? Maruki is terrifying. Like, legit, the whole third semester was fucking with my head the entire time. But mostly it ripped my heart out because please, Atlus, just let my feral bastard stinkman get a break.  
> So THEN I figured I’d carry on watching a P5R highlights compilation from a stream, because the streamer kinda hated Akechi and it was funny and so I figured it would cheer me up. But then by the end she was sobbing and begging the game to at least tell her he’d been happy at some point during his brief resurrection, and it was crying in the club time _yet again_.  
> And since I, too, would like for Atlus to at least tell me that he managed to scrape up some ounce of happiness, somewhere, before spontaneously ceasing to exist, this happened.

He’s just...going to leave. Just let that bomb fall— _surprise! I’ve been dead since December!—_ and walk away. Akira isn’t even aware he’s moving when he reaches out to catch Goro’s arm, fingers curling tight around his wrist.

Goro casts a sidelong glance back over his shoulder. “Second thoughts already?” he asks, in that light and floaty voice with enough of an edge of steel underneath to say that his temper is not long behind.

Mutely, Akira shakes his head, but his hold on Goro’s wrist tightens further. “Nothing like that.” He tugs, and at last Goro turns to face him again, impatient but not fighting. Akira lets him go. “Just...if this is your last night, do you really want to be alone?”

Goro tips his head to the side slightly, eyes narrowing. Not maliciously—Akira has seen  _that_ look enough to recognize it—but like he’s trying to find  where the catch is.

“Do you want me to stay?”

“Not if you don’t want to,” Akira murmurs, “but,” because there can be no open ends, or Goro will scuttle through them like a ferret through a cat flap, “yes. I do.”

Goro’s gaze drifts ceilingward for a moment, as if he is beseeching a higher power he almost certainly doesn’t believe in for patience he almost certainly won’t find. But then he sighs, and looks at Akira again, and relents.

“If it means that much to you,” he huffs.

Despite that, neither of them says anything else after that. They stand there in silence, just watching each other, until it seems like even the fluorescent lights might turn deafening.

It’s Akira who eventually breaks the quiet, mouth opening around a question he’s not really ready to ask.

“Were you at least happy while you were back? At all? Ever?”

“What does that have to do with anything?” Goro asks, irritation layered over his confusion like a security blanket.

Oh.

Huh.

Goro doesn’t seem to have heard anything, so Akira is just going to assume that odd crinkling noise was his heart breaking.

“Probably it has to do with me giving a shit about you,” Akira explains patiently. “And wanting to know that if my decision is going to get you killed again, at least some part of it seemed worth it, seems pretty sensible.”

Goro opens his mouth to respond, but...pauses. Evidently, he digs up something of his long-neglected tact, because rather than grinding salt into the wound, what he settles on is, “You are distressingly sentimental. Has anyone ever told you that before?”

Akira laughs, low and quiet, but nevertheless just verging on hysterical. “Oh, you don’t know the half of it,” he sighs, lifting a hand to catch Goro’s chin between two fingers.

Goro tenses. Neither of them moves for a few seconds. And then slowly, carefully, like he’s trying not to startle a colt, Akira’s hand slides back to cup the side of Goro’s face, thumb sliding along his cheekbone.

Goro jerks his head back and retreats a step. “Don’t you _dare_ ,” he snarls, shoulders bunching halfway to his ears. He looks like he might bolt out the door at any moment.

“Goro—”

“I said _don’t_ ,” he snaps. “I didn’t want your pity before, and I sure as shit don’t want it _now_ , of all times.” He scoffs out something like an ugly laugh. “ _Please_. Is this the only way you can convince yourself to feel bad about my plight? To pretend we’re some ridiculous pair of star-crossed—”

“For fuck’s sake, Goro!” Akira seizes him by the forearms and gives him a shake; just a brief rattle.

Goro falls silent, mouth closing with a click. He looks like he can’t quite decide if he’s startled or offended, and lands somewhere in the realm of ‘vaguely constipated.’

“If Maruki isn’t allowed to tell us how we feel, you sure as hell don’t get to tell me that, either,” Akira snaps, though his hold on Goro’s forearms doesn’t relax.

Goro tries to recoil, managing a step back before Akira’s hold on his arms keeps him in place.

“I wasn’t--” He gives a sort of aborted squirm before realizing he’s not going anywhere. “That’s not--” He closes his mouth again, takes a breath, and sighs. Something in his shoulders loosens, and they slump, just slightly. “ _Must_ you make things harder on yourself?”

Akira snorts out an unattractive laugh, grip loosening enough for his hands to slide up Goro’s arms to his shoulders. “That isn’t how this works,” he replies. “I’m saying it because the feeling is  already  there, not the other way around.”

Goro opens his mouth, but nothing comes out, and he closes it again, the spot between his eyebrows scrunching with consternation. His hands flex at his sides, before he lifts them abruptly, and for a split second Akira is convinced he’s going to get decked.

Instead, Goro seizes two handfuls of the front of Akira’s shirt and hauls him forward. Their mouths meet with a click of teeth. Akira stumbles, over-corrects, and reels back a step, hands back to meet the edge of the table behind him. His hands curl around the edge of it for balance as he presses forward, leaning in before Goro can get the wrong idea, because he _can_ and _will_ assume that Akira is trying to retreat at the slightest inclination.

There is nothing gentle about it,  but they do at least find some modicum of grace after their collision, angled just so to avoid bashing their noses together. There’s teeth and tongue and Goro’s hold on the front of Akira’s shirt remains locked tight, and Akira keeps a hold of the table behind him because he feels a bit like he might burst apart at the seams if he lets go,  and he feels like that might put a damper on the moment if he lets it happen .

Maybe it’s a minute, maybe ten, maybe a hundred, but eventually they separate, for a certain definition of the word, leaning apart just enough that their breath still mingles.  Reluctantly, Akira opens his eyes. He doesn’t recall closing them.

For a moment, neither of them moves.

And then, slowly,  Goro’s grip on Akira’s shirt loosens and releases, hands instead drifting down, first to Akira’s hips and then lower, hands curling against the backs of his legs. Akira lets himself be boosted up to sit on the edge of the table, finally letting go of the edge of it. He spreads his knees and instead threads a hand into Goro’s hair to tug him closer.

Sitting on the table, he has just enough of a height advantage that Goro needs to tip his face up  to meet Akira’s eyes.

Goro searches Akira’s face, and Akira wonders if he looks half as desperate  ( _just one more day, please, but that’s never going to happen, is it?_ ) as he feels. Whatever Goro finds there, evidently it’s encouraging. His hands settle on Akira’s thighs and he leans up, their lips meeting again.

It’s...slower, this time. Not quite gentle, but softer, in as much as anything Goro is involved in can ever be called  _soft_ . An exploration, rather than a raid.  Akira’s eyes close again, and his fingers in Goro’s hair loosen, until he can run them through it, over and over, the motion almost absentminded.

I f Goro wants to explore, then fine. Akira parts his lips and lets him, his free hand lifting to curl his fingers in the fabric of Goro’s scarf, so he can at least hold on for the ride.

Even so, it’s brief. Or is it? Akira feels like it is, but he thinks maybe he might be biased. When they break apart a second time, the tip of Goro’s nose traces along the bridge of Akira’s, and  _fuck_ , but that’s adorable. Akira opens his eyes and very nearly tells Goro exactly that, regardless of the odds of Goro then biting said nose off.

But Akira sees the look on Goro’s face.

A nd he freezes.

It’s nothing overt. It’s not a revelation. It’s not shining like the sun, or gleaming like the moon off the snow. It’s hidden in the corner of his lips and the edge of his eyes, and if they were any other two people, Akira wouldn’t even know where to look.

“You had a question for me a moment ago,” Goro observes, still standing close enough that their lips brush as he speaks. “Ask me again.”

**Author's Note:**

> me: I (lovingly) referred to Goro as a horrible little shitweasel on my blog once and ferrets have just been his thing ever since  
> the friend i was screaming at about this fic: what are crows if not bird shaped ferrets anyway
> 
> anyway come give me a poke on [tumblr](https://shaicarus.tumblr.com/).


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